Electronic devices, such as so-called smart phone, tablet, and the like, on which a touch panel is mounted, have been widely used. A touch panel detects, for example, a touch operation performed thereon by a user and outputs coordinate information indicating an operation position thereof. An electronic device acquires, based on the coordinate information indicating the operation position received from the touch panel and coordinate relationship information for a display panel and the touch panel, the coordinate position of the display panel which corresponds to the coordinate position indicating the operation position. Then, the electronic device specifies a display object displayed in the acquired coordinate position of the display panel and executes processing appropriate to the display object.
In many cases, a user holds such an electronic device with his or her hand to operate the electronic device. In such a case, the fingers and hand with which the user holds the electronic device may happen to touch the touch panel, and thus, a touch operation that is not intended by the user may be detected.
In order to reduce such false detection of the touch operation, a technology in which a touch detection invalid area having a predetermined width is set in an outer edge part of a display surface on which a touch panel is mounted has been known. For example, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2012-194997, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2014-130450, and the like discuss related art.
However, in a related technology described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2012-194997, part of a display screen which is located at an outer edge thereof and has a predetermined width is an invalid area (an insensitive area) at all times and an operation button and the like are not displayed therein. Therefore, in a mobile terminal in which the size of the display screen is limited, the display screen is not effectively used.
On the other hand, in a related technology described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2014-130450, a predetermined range is set at an outer edge of an input area. Then, if an object to which a touch point in the range which a user touched corresponds and another object to which another touch point out of the predetermined range corresponds are objects related to each other, it is assumed that the touch point in the predetermined range which the user touched is effective, and thus, processing is executed. On the other hand, if the objects are not related to each other, the touch point in the predetermined range which the user touched is processed as an invalid input. That is, the technology described in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2014-130450 is a technology in which a plurality of related objects are displayed and, only when the plurality of objects is simultaneously touched, a touch point in the predetermined range which the user touched is valid. For an operation performed on a single object, the above-described effect is not exhibited.
In each of the above-described related technologies, a touch in an invalid area is invalid, and therefore, a touch to a single object a part of which overlaps with the invalid area is valid only when a touch operation is performed on a part of the object located in a display area other than the invalid area with which the part of the object overlaps. If the size of the object is small, a part of the object in which a touch operation is effective is smaller, and operability is remarkably reduced.
When a slide operation in which a start point is a point in the invalid area is performed, the start point of a slide is not detected. Therefore, even when a slide operation is performed thereafter in a part out of the invalid area, the slide operation is not recognized as an intended operation by the electronic device. As described above a problem arises in which user operability is deteriorated. It is therefore desired that even an object that overlaps with an invalid area may be used with good operability and a limited display screen may be effectively used.